Dr Ben Warburton
School of Arts, Media and Creative Technologies
Current positions
Lecturer
Biography
Ben is a Lecturer in Film Studies and Film Production at the University of Salford, whose recently-completed PhD investigated the relationship between fake news, ancient myth, and modern perceptions of truth, via research-by-practice. Ben has near ten years of experience working within the television and online media sectors, including work a wide range of film and television productions: from Ian Brown music videos, to short form producer for BBC Music Day, and APC on high-end television dramas Endeavour and Victoria. Most recently, they have worked as an associate producer with F-West films alongside my position at Salford.
In 2024, Ben completed their PhD candidature, publishing the final doctoral thesis in December 2025. As a practice-as-research PhD thesis, the research output primarily focused on consumer behavioural manipulation via visual misinformation, interrogating the mechanisms utilised through the lens of ancient myth and structuralist interpretation.
Moving from the TV industry back into academia, they now lecture in Film Studies, Film Production, and Creative Arts. Their research interests include ideologies in/of queer representations; alongside semiotics, postmodernism, mythologies, and film bodies.
Areas of Research
Ben's research output specialises in semiotic deconstruction of representations, particularly within queer theory and media discourse. At present, Ben is conducting research into the semiotic representation of queer bodies in cinema.
They are further interested in ideologies, mythologies, misinformation, propaganda, psychoanalysis in cinema, transmedia, LGBTQ+ media, symbolism, and structuralism.
Areas of Supervision
Ideologies, LGBTQIA+ media, misinformation, mythologies, practice-as-research, propaganda, psychoanalysis in cinema, transmedia storytelling, semiotics, structuralism, and symbolism.
L4:
• Critical Approaches I, Module Leader
• Critical Approaches II, Module Leader
L6:
• Film and Theory, Module Leader
• Final Film Project: Preparation, Module Leader
• Final Film Project
• Dissertation
L7:
• Practice Research Project
• Dissertation
Qualifications
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PhD Media and Communications
2019 - 2025 -
MA Media Production
2017 - 2018